Straight As an Arrow

Before I get into my original post this week
I thought I would share a funny story about myself.
I know, who does that!
Me apparently.
I thought since the Powerball jackpot was so
HUGE I would get a group of co-workers together
to see if we could win that bad boy.
So I collected everyone's money on Tuesday
and went down to our local convenience store on
Wednesday morning before I got ready for work.
I hadn't even had my morning coffee.
I knew that I wouldn't have time to purchase the
tickets after work on Tuesday or Wednesday night.
So off I went to get our winning lottery ticket!
As I was waiting for the tickets to print I
happened to look down at my feet for some reason.
I had to chuckle to myself because this is what I saw.

How could we NOT win with a shoe combination like that!
Luckily, I was the only one in the store at the time.
If the two clerks working the store noticed they were
polite enough not to say anything.
Sadly, my mismatched shoes didn't get us the winning ticket.
Oh well, at least everyone got a kick (pun intended) out of it though.

O.k., onto my original post.

I did it again.

I filled another blank wall
and it only costs me $6.00!

It's the wall that we see when we go down

to the family room. I tried hanging wreaths

and pictures in this spot but just wasn't happy with

the look of them. Then I had an idea about hanging

a set of arrows, one up, and one down.
You know, like directional arrows.

I needed at least 4 foot arrows to fill in this blank space.

I couldn't find any 4 foot long arrows for this area,
so Hubby and I create these using 1"x 3"x 8' boards.
I didn't take any pictures of the steps to make these
because they are so incredibly simple to make.

Take one of the 8 foot boards and cut in half.
Take the second 8 foot board and cut 8 pieces, 8 inches long.
Cut each of the 8 inch pieces at 45° angles on each end.

If you decide that you want your arrows painted,
or stained, now is the time to do it before you put
your arrows together.

I decided that I wanted my arrows stained.
This is the stain that I chose because:

1. I already had it in my painting supply stash,
and
2. I really like the color that this stain gives to wood.

After the boards were dry Hubby nailed them together
and added a sawtooth hanger on the back.

Then we hung them up.

One more look.

I like them because they add a little bit of interest to an
otherwise blah and boring looking wall, plus they
blend in so well with the rest of our decor.

This picture shows how the stain brings out the variations
of color in the wood, which provided the added texture I was going for.

Home decor for $6.00 that looks stylish and provides added texture.

I'll take it!

That's it for this week.

Until Next Time,

Veronica

Hello You

Hello You.

It's me again, Veronica.

If you happen to follow along with my blog,

you know that I am slowly working my way

around our home and styling areas that need

a little styling/restyling.

Our lower level of our home has a family room, with

bar area, 2 bedrooms, a full bath and a room that we

use as a work out room, plus a small area for storage.

The area in the above picture is the hallway that

leads to the guest bathroom and bedrooms.

It was a plain hallway that needed to be a little dressed up.

I had an extra blank canvas that was dying to be

made into a piece of art.

I thought that a piece of art would be enough

to dress up this bare wall.

Ummm, no.

That wall still looked bare to me.

It was o.k., but it still needed a little something to cover up the

carbon monoxide detector. I didn't want to buy anything new so I went

digging through my stash of home decor and furniture that is in

our storage area to see what I could find.

I found this stand that used to be in our kitchen.

I kept digging and came across this floral arrangement

and placed it on the stand.

Ignore the crooked picture, I didn't have my tripod level.

Oopsie!

That's better.

I really liked the simple arrangement on the stand,

but the only thing wrong with this was

you could still see the carbon monoxide detector.

Drats!

So I kept digging and found a tobacco basket.

On the stand it went.

I liked the look of the tobacco basket on the

stand but it kept falling down and wouldn't

stand up to cover the detector.

Back to digging.

Next, I found this birdhouse that I bought many,

many years ago at a craft show.

It helped to hold up the basket.

O.k. that looks better.

Except,

now I needed to balance out the

right side of the stand.

So I placed Hubby's childhood bible,

which was the perfect off white color

on the bottom right side.

It was still a little off balance.

Back to digging.

I found a short pillar candle holder and placed

it on top of the bible.

Dang it, now the right side is too dark!!!

Back to digging some more.

How about a little blue bird on top of the pillar candle holder?

I love using birds in my decor.

I think I'm finally satisfied with this look.

Yeah!

From plain and boring.....

to an unexpected welcoming hallway.

Not only did I get a nicely styled hallway,

with plenty of room to walk around the corner,

but best of all...

it didn't cost me a dime!

Hubby definitely loved that!

That's it for this week.

Until Next Time,

Veronica

Signs of Fall

Can you believe it's August already!

We've had a hot, humid and rainy

summer this year.

I noticed that signs of fall

are starting to show up.

Our Burning bush is starting to turn red,

along with the sedum that flanks our lamp post.

The sedum will eventually look like this as fall progresses.

Our hydrangeas are starting to fade in color,

but are still beautiful as they fade and dry out.

The early part of July we planted a Kopper King Hibiscus

aka Rose of Sharon bush.

Excuse our weeds.

We haven't had much time to weed around here lately.

We weren't expecting it to bloom this fall.

Imagine our surprise when we noticed this today!

Aren't those flowers gorgeous?

The flowers are HUGE!

This shrub blooms from summer into late fall.

We also planted a Red Prince Weigela (pronounced wa-gel-la) shrub

which will bloom in early summer and again in late summer.

I didn't take a picture of this shrub but here is the

tag that was attached to it.

*Aunt Helen if you are reading this, this is the shrub

that your neighbor, Sam, has planted by her mailbox.

It will eventually look like this come early summer

and continue to bloom into late summer.

It puts on quite the show.

A few weeks ago I snapped this picture out of our

bedroom window of our twins.

Today Hubby and I were in the garage making all kinds

of noise running the saw. The twins decided to come out

and get a bite to eat. They weren't even afraid of all the

noise we were making.

One of them decided to come and get a drink in our water hole.

I was able to get within 10 feet of this fawn.

I started to talk to it and it just looked at me.

It finally got it's fill and walked away.

We are working on a new project that is going to

take us awhile to finish.  I'm hoping it turns out

how I envision it to be. I'll be sure to post it when

it's finished, so stay tuned.

That's it for this week.

Until Next Time,

Veronica